Is there anything positive about illegal immigration?

I guess your perspective on illegal immigration depends on whether you need maid service or not. Personally, I need my gutters cleaned, so I'm all for it.

"But hold on there a minute," some of you squawk. "We already have enough gardeners!"

Oh, I see. Illegal immigration isn't a race issue; it's all about class.

Because Americans have no problem with racial differences.

Just look at the phenomenal interest in international adoption with those cute, round-faced Chinese babies topping the charts.

But when you look at class issues, well, that's totally different.

Because it's one thing to hire someone to clean your gutters at a fair market price, but when your kid comes home from school complaining he's the only white boy in his class, well, now we're talking trouble.

There may be health care costs and other incidental costs we bear because of illegal immigrants, but we reap from their low-cost labor.

Like when they build our new fancy homes, helping us grow our retirement nest eggs.

But when they start buying houses abutting our property lines and deflating our home's value, obviously, someone needs to control the tap of the cleaning staff that we flood into this country. If we wanted to hire live-in-maids, we would have done that.

We need only enough maids and gutter cleaners for the number of homes we have.

Unfortunately, equal opportunity doesn't always work that way.

But consider this: Americans may be overlooking other benefits besides cleaner sinks reaped from illegal immigration -- their own acculturation. For too long, America has been a secluded English-speaking island in relative comfort, protected by its blissful ignorance of the world around it.

We've forgotten that America is a cultural rat's nest based on a shared belief in the American dream.

If you work hard, you can own a house, save money, build a life and grow a family.

I got an unexpected glimpse into the economic necessity of undocumented workers while coordinating our neighborhood's spring purchase of pine straw. During a long, hot afternoon, I worked with six Spanish-speaking guys distributing hundreds of bales. The company's owner told me that he annually employs these same men, as they do excellent, motivated work for $10 an hour. Then he sighed. Because an impending state law would impose crippling fines for employing illegals, he would have to start checking for green cards. He worried that he'd lose most of his workers and thus face two bad choices: Either shut down, or hire expensive American workers, double his prices and lose most of his customers.

Imagine the impact on our economy if price increases were forced on every industry relying on immigrants -- often, undocumented ones -- to fill the low-paying jobs that Americans don't want. Imagine if prices rose not just in elective services like gutter cleaning, but in massive industries like construction, farming, meat-packing and hospitality.

I'll admit this isn't the standard conservative approach to this topic, but President Bush's isn't either -- and his immigration reform is urgently needed. Our unemployment rate is 4.7 percent, lower than the so-called full employment rate of 5.6 percent, where everyone who wants a job has one. That means many jobs go unfilled -- even with more than 10 million undocumented immigrants working!

If any company understands employment dynamics, it is the venerable outplacement company Challenger, Gray & Christmas. In an interview, CEO John Challenger explained this about meeting or exceeding full employment: "Companies cut back on expansion because of fear they won't be able to find workers. There's no disputing that immigrants are willing to take a lower wage and work longer hours. This has been the engine that has spurred on the U.S. economy and made it the country it is. There's no other country like it. We have new people that come in with energy and new ideas to fight their way up. Without immigrants, we'd lose our engine and become soft."

Technically, immigrants are illegal only if their work visa isn't granted. Although other reforms are needed, it's in our best interest to align the number of allowed work visas with the job market. Fast.